University Of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute, Inc.

University Of Kansas Medical Center Research Institute, Inc., doing business as Kumc Research Institute, is a tax-exempt research organization and child entity of the University of Kansas that acts as a prime recipient on federal research grants and prime contractor on delivery orders, conducting biomedical and clinical research across diverse disease areas and translational programs. The organization operates as a grant and contract recipient (78% prime awards, 22% sub-awards across the recent footprint) with no set-aside designations, competing in full-and-open federal research funding.

KUMCRI's research portfolio spans basic science, translational, clinical, and population health domains anchored by the National Institutes of Health, with secondary funding from the Defense Health Agency, National Science Foundation, the Department of Agriculture, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. Recent capability work centers on cancer biology and immunotherapy (including adult T-cell leukemia dual-target therapeutics, triple-negative breast cancer resistance mechanisms, and NRF2 inhibition in bladder cancer); neurodegenerative disease and aging (Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis, mitochondrial dysfunction, tau phosphorylation, and exercise effects on cognition); translational maternal and child health (responsive caregiver-child language interactions, pregnancy complications, pediatric obesity and pain, and pediatric clinical trials infrastructure); metabolic disease (type 2 diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease); infectious disease (Borrelia spirochetes, Staphylococcus aureus, RSV, and hepatitis mechanisms); and respiratory health (cystic fibrosis mucus plugging and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis endotypes). KUMCRI also holds a delivery order under the AHRQ Evidence-based Practice Centers VII IDIQ for evidence synthesis and related research support services ($450 thousand, time-and-materials, completion September 2030).

Customer concentration is heavily dominated by the National Institutes of Health, accounting for approximately 44% of awards by count. Within NIH, the National Cancer Institute leads by potential value ($75.9 million across 118 awards), followed by the National Institute on Aging (113 awards) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (103 awards). The organization served 104 distinct customer agencies across recent years; however, NIH and its component institutes account for the vast majority of the funding footprint. Activity has grown—90 awards in 2023 to 195 in 2024—though 2025 shows 120 awards and 2026 shows 115, suggesting stabilization rather than continued year-over-year growth. A recompete cliff of 143 awards (combined potential value $441 thousand) reaches completion within the next twenty-four months.

KUMCRI operates as a prime on federal grants across NIH programs, the AHRQ delivery order for evidence synthesis, and construction grants from NIST. The organization serves as a subrecipient on grants managed by University of Kansas Center for Research, Inc., the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Children's Mercy Hospital, University of Pittsburgh, and numerous other research institutions, performing clinical research operations, biospecimen collection and processing, site-specific behavioral interventions, neuroimaging analysis, and laboratory testing. As a subcontractor on federal service contracts, SCI-reported activity is minimal (0.2 FTEs in FY2025 as prime, averaging sub-engagement across a small number of records), indicating that KUMCRI's federal activity is dominated by research grants and service contracts structured as cost-reimbursable grants rather than firm-fixed-price service contracts. The organization's recent federal work portfolio reflects no time-and-materials or labor-hour service contracts at scale in the SCI dataset, consistent with its mission as a university-affiliated research institute focused on grant administration rather than commercial service delivery.

KUMCRI competes full-and-open across NIH funding opportunities and does not hold standing on government-wide contract vehicles such as GWACs or agency-wide IDIQs beyond the single AHRQ EPC VII delivery order. The organization's strength lies in grant capture and sub-recipient management across large, collaborative, multi-institutional research programs, with particular depth in cancer research (NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center designation as of 2022), aging and dementia research (through KU Alzheimer's Disease Research Center), and pediatric clinical research (ECHO IDEA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network Data Coordinating and Operations Center co-leadership with University of Nebraska Medical Center). Performance of all work occurs at the Kansas City, Kansas facility and subordinate research sites within the University of Kansas Health System.